Report: San Bernardino shooter radicalized, in contact with terror suspects

On Thursday, CNN reported that Syed Rizwan Farook, one of those involved in the recent shooting in San Bernardino, California, was radicalized and in contact with people being investigated by the FBI for international terrorism, citing law enforcement officials.

Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, fired about 65 to 75 rifle rounds “during the shooting at a county health department holiday party, then unloaded about that number in a later confrontation with police,” CNN said.

Farook was identified as a “devout Muslim,” and his Twitter account indicates that he followed a number of accounts promoting Islam, Palestine and Syrian rebel causes, including the official Twitter account for the Syrian Revolution Network.

CNN added:

Still, it wasn’t necessarily the only driver behind the carnage, as workplace grievances may have also played a role. President Barack Obama hinted as much Thursday when he said that the attackers may have had “mixed motives.”

Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia for several weeks in 2013 on the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime, which didn’t raise red flags, said two government officials. It was during this trip that he met Malik, a native of Pakistan who came to the United States on a “fiancée visa” and later became a lawful permanent resident.

Officials had previously said that neither Farook and Malik were known to the FBI or on a list of potentially radicalized people. Nor had they had any known interactions with police until Wednesday’s deadly shootout that culminated in their deaths.

Work-related, for those who don’t speak Obamese, is a euphemism for acts of radical Islamic terrorism committed by Muslims on American soil. When army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, opened fire on dozens of people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, killing 13, Obama pretended that those killings, too, were driven by workplace dissatisfaction. The fact that Hasan cried Allahu Akbar as he mowed down victims seems not to have been a factor.

According to CNN, Farook reportedly contacted other terror suspects by phone and social media.

Nevertheless, one official told CNN: “We don’t know yet what they mean.” Out own Faye Higbee, however, suggested yesterday that terrorism was a definite possibility.